


dear family; it has been so long since we have spoken

by 8The_Great_Perhaps8



Series: [RETURNED UNOPENED] invalid mailing address [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU
Genre: Age Reversal, Age Swap, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Batfamily Feels, Blood and Gore, Canonical Character Death, Character Study, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Childhood Sexual Abuse, Jason-Centric, Kidnapping, Letters, Past Rape/Non-con, Psychological Torture, Resurrected Jason Todd, Stream of Consciousness, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-07-04
Packaged: 2018-07-10 13:08:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6986368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/8The_Great_Perhaps8/pseuds/8The_Great_Perhaps8
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(i am writing to-day to discuss our previous falling out)<br/>jason's rebirth in letters to his famiily</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. dear brother, it has been so long since i have seen you

Dear Oldest Brother,

The first time I ever saw you, I was four years old. It was probably one of the last times that you were out on patrol, thinking back on it. Steph would have taken your place quickly, after Bruce fired you.

But anyway.

I was hanging out my apartment window, on top of the fire escape, with my mom drunkenly slurring at me to get my ass back in the apartment before I fell and cracked my head open on the concrete.

I had a funny feeling back then, though, that if I did fall, you would catch me.

I was wrong, though. Wrong and stupid.

You were fighting the Joker, and the moment that sticks in my head, clear as day, is seeing you outlined against the moon while you went in for a flying side kick to the Joker’s head. I thought you were going to decapitate him.

You didn’t, though. You always held back just enough to avoid killing him, just enough so that ~~Dad~~ Bruce would be proud of you, would keep you.

I hear that that was the last fight that you were in as Robin, that you almost died at the end and ~~Dad~~ Bruce decided that you weren’t good enough to be Robin anymore, or maybe that you were too good to be Robin, like you were some kind of glittering paragon that he couldn’t turn into some child soldier for fear of committing a mortal sin; like making you fight against the Joker is like killing a mockingbird.

It’s bullshit, by the way.

And don’t even try to tell me to watch my language, Damian. I can say whatever the fuck I want. Fuck you! FUCK YOU! Nobody here to stop me anymore! No one to tell me that I can’t go on patrol if I don’t stop swearing, no one to tell me to put a dollar in the swear jar, no one to threaten to scrub my mouth out with soap if I don’t watch my mouth. Go fuck yourself!

Whatever. That’s not what’s important right now.

I don’t think he meant any honest harm by taking you out of the game. I think that he actually thought that it was the right thing for you to do.

You were always so damnably careful, Damian. Every time I ever saw you, you had the next twenty moves planned out in your head. You thought everything was a chess game, and you thought everyone else thought so too. You thought, well if I open with the Petrokov attack, then they’ll counter with the Russell defense, and you never took a moment to consider that they might just flip the board over like an angry toddler, never wondered if their pawns would find Jesus and become bishops, if their king and queen were digging an escape tunnel, if they ever cheated. You never even wondered if they were taking some of your pawns off the board while your back was turned, if they changed the arrangement of the board, if they swapped out chess for Stratego while you went to get a drink.

Bruce didn’t give a damn how careful you were, because Bruce wasn’t careful enough. Bruce thought that Robin was a shitty idea in Gotham, liable to get some kid killed.

So after he fired you, Steph hired herself and she got to be Robin for a little while. Then, after Bruce finally decided that Steph wasn’t worth keeping around, he got rid of her and she turned into Spoiler. Then Tim became Robin, to the surprise of only Bruce.

But you know all this.

The first time you met me, you were filling in for Batman while he was out of town. You had left the Batmobile parked in Crime Alley, and I guess I just couldn’t help myself. I got three wheels in record time.

When I came back to get the last one, you were there. You grabbed me by the scruff of my neck and acted like I weighed nothing—I probably didn’t weigh much of anything to you, at least. I was twelve years old, four foot ten, and all I had eaten that entire week had been two sandwiches.

You grabbed me, anyway, looked me in the eye, and asked where the tires were.

“What tires?” I had asked. “If you don’t put me down, I’ll scream. You aren’t exactly popular around here.”

“The tires you stole off the car,” you had told me. “Or is the tire iron unrelated?”

“Yeah,” I had told you, “it is.”

“Then what is it for?” You had asked.

And I had slammed the tire iron into your head.

Remember, Dami, how for the first month, two months, three months after Bruce took me in, I kept lording that over you? Any time you would bump into something (or someone, usually) I would say “Wow, Damian, you walked right into that one! Reminds me of another time you walked into something.”

I don’t know if you could tell, Damian, but back when Bruce first took me in I was afraid of you. You were tall, dark, brooding, handsome, and you had a glare that could kill. You were incredibly strong, and you beat me in sparring every time. You didn’t let people win so that they could feel better about themselves. It’s lose until you win, and I never won.

I think that the most scared of you I ever was was when you decided to get revenge on me for always bringing up the tire iron story.

You remember what you did, right, Damian? I was walking down to the Batcave so that I could do my history homework in peace—Tim and Steph were both home that weekend, and neither could stop grabbing at me or my homework. 

I don’t think they even knew why it bothered me so much, Damian. Do you?

It’s because I was a fifth grade dropout, and history is one of those things that never changes much. I could finally read a book without lying on the floor so I wouldn’t get hit with a stray bullet, could write an essay without getting robbed for being pansy-ass. I loved learning, Dami, and they kept bugging me so I couldn’t learn.

Anyway, I was walking down to the Batcave. You know those stairs, Damian, how they’re cut into the edge of a rock face and you can’t use them if it’s been raining because you might slip and fall and smash your fucking head open.

I was halfway down the stairs when you must have slipped out of a crack in the wall. When I went back down the stairs, a few months later, I couldn’t find the crack, no matter how hard I looked.

So you came out behind me, and you followed me, just off my footsteps enough to make me suspicious, but not enough to convince me that I was right.

Once I was at the bottom of the stairs, when I was just about to turn around and check, you grabbed me around the arms and bear-hugged me up off the floor.

“Hello, Jason,” you said, in a deep, burly voice that wasn’t your own.

I’m not sure how long it took you to notice something was wrong. When it happens, when I go back, I lose track of time until I come back to the moment.

But you must have noticed eventually, that I was stiff and shaking and I wasn’t laughing it off or calling you a fuckhead or even struggling to get out of your hold.

“Jason?” You asked, finally. You gently placed me back on the floor and turned me to face you; my history work was scattered all around us. “Jason, are you okay? I did not mean to scare you so badly.”

I was shaking at that point, my whole body, and I remember you looking scared, desperate, out of your depth.

My eyes started watering, and you started panicking. “Jason?” You had asked again. “Jason, do you need me to get someone? Bruce? Alfred? Steph?”

“Dami,” I had finally choked out, and I had started crying. I threw my arms around your neck and started sobbing. “Dami, it’s you, thank God.”

I don’t think you knew what to do. I don’t think that you knew how to deal with people more than a few months younger than you, even after Steph and Tim and you dealing with Garfield on the Teen Titans.

I definitely don’t think you knew how to handle me. I’m pretty sure that that had been the first time you ever saw me vulnerable, Dami. You had been trying to be a big brother, and pull an asshole big brother move, but instead you grabbed the only kid who could never be grabbed from behind without flipping out, the only kid who has a deep psychological fear of footsteps following them, of a deep voice saying “Hello” and grabbing them so that they can’t move, and holding them down until—

I think that that was when we first started being brothers, Dami. It was the first time when you could tell I was an actual person and not just some smartass street kid who was either dumb enough or brave enough to try and jack the Batmobile’s tires.

We stayed down there for a while, long past Alfred cleaning up dinner, you holding me and telling me that everything was alright, that I was okay, that nobody was ever going to hurt me ever again.

That was when I started getting better in my training. You didn’t notice that, did you? You didn’t see how I was more vicious when I deflected a blow, didn’t see how I would do the same exercises for hours until I could do it in twenty seconds flat without breaking a sweat.

If you would have ever practiced self-defense with me, you would have seen something really incredible. Tim once told me that I had some of the strongest self-defense tactics he had ever seen.

Were you scared that I would freak out again, Damian? Is that why you never did self-defense with me, never hugged me from behind like you sometimes did to Tim at Christmas, only ever approached me from the front after that day?

I got better at it, Dami. Bruce talked to me once after I froze up when we were fighting some schmook, and he made me go to a therapist for a year.

I got better. You have to get better, if you want to be Robin.

I was afraid he was going to make me stop being Robin, Dami. For a month after I froze up with the bad guy, I kept a go bag with some food, some old silver stuff I could sell, and some clothes without holes in them. I would’ve kept it longer, except Tim found it and made me unpack it and put everything back.

Do you remember the first time we teamed up, Dami? You were Batman and I was Robin, because Bruce was out of town doing something-or-other, and we were about to crack a meth shop. I almost crashed through the skylight before the supply even _got_ there, but you grabbed me by the cape and pulled me back.

“Wait,” you had growled at me. “Always wait until you know all the information.”

I had figured that I _did_ know all the information, up until the pick-up drove up and they started unloading it.

“Now you know all the information you need to,” you had told me. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

I’m pretty sure that that was the first joke I’ve ever heard you tell, Dami. I can’t imagine you calling people ‘tiger’ in day to day speech, anyways, so I think it was a joke.

Did you think that the Joker’s joke was funny?

Damian, I know you have mommy issues up the ass, so I think you should be able to relate to what happened the most. I found out my mom wasn’t my birth mom, and that threw me off, so Bruce decided to try and throw me off, so I stole some of his credit cards and fucked off. It was like Scooby-Doo or something, Dami, I swear. Three different names, three different countries, and you don’t get the right answer until the very end.

My birth mother’s name was Sheila Haywood. She was in charge of a relief camp in Ethiopia, and the first time she met me, she told me to call her mom.

It sounds too good to be true, right? I should’ve run a background check, right?

Well, why didn’t you tell me that when I was a fifteen-year-old kid who was just excited to be able to call someone mom who wasn’t drugged out all the time?

I called you, Dami. As soon as I met Sheila, I stood outside her tent and called you, and I told you that I had found my mom, and that I couldn’t wait for you to meet her, and I had to go right then but I hoped you called back.

Bruce told me to be suspicious, that nothing is ever as it seems, and I told him to fuck off. We said some harsh things then, Dami, right before I died. It had been the first time me and Bruce had met up in a month, at the very least, and he had thought that it was phenomenally stupid how I had left the country without telling anybody so that I could search for my mom.

It was like how Tim and Steph couldn’t understand how much I liked doing homework, Dami. They didn’t understand how excited I was to be learning something new, how much I enjoyed being able to be smart. Bruce didn’t understand how much I needed to find my mom, how badly I had to have someone who loved me.

Not to be rude to you or Alfie or Bruce, Dami, because you were all great people, and I know that you all cared about me, but you weren’t any type of mother. Bruce was a dad, and he was a good dad. Did he ever tell you about the time when I got sick, but I still wanted to go on patrol and he made me stay home? I was so pissed, Dami, because I kept thinking that he didn’t think that I was good enough to be Robin. Alfred set me up on the couch in the living room on the first floor, and he put on some lame dinosaur documentary. I was planning on sulking all the way through that, and then sulking through going to bed and sulking through the next two days, but then Bruce came up behind me, still wearing his Batman cowl, and he sat next to me and watched it with me until I fell asleep.

But I don’t have daddy issues, Dami, I have mommy issues, probably even worse than you do, and once I found out that my mom wasn’t my birth mom, I had to find out who was. It was like a compulsion, Dami, like I couldn’t even help myself.

You remember what happened after I found Sheila, right? It turned out that you were right, that she was embezzling money from a relief program, and she was working with the Joker, of all people, to do it. While Bruce chased off some of the Joker’s goons, I went in and tried to talk to Sheila. She got all teary-eyed, and she looked like she was going to turn over a new leaf.

When she took me into the warehouse, the Joker was waiting for me. He hit me over the head with a crowbar, and I passed out.

He tied me up when I was asleep I guess, but Dami, he didn’t hit me again until I woke up. When I opened my eyes, he was standing over me and hitting the crowbar into his palm over and over.

“Robin’s awake,” he had warbled.

And then he hit me with the crowbar.

He started out with hitting me only below the shoulders. I guess he didn’t want me to pass out again, Damian, and it hurt so much. But I held on, Damian. I never screamed. I thought that Bruce was coming to get me, and I didn’t want him to find me with me screaming with the Joker in total control.

I kept thinking that Bruce was coming for me, Damian. I thought, okay, he’s coming, I’ll be alright, I just have to hang on for another few minutes, then he’ll come get me.

But I guess that in the back of my head, I knew that Bruce wasn’t going to come get me. It only took me ten minutes to realize that.

And then I thought that you were coming for me, Dami. I had called you, and I had told you about Sheila and where I was and how you didn’t need to worry, and as the Joker hit me with the crowbar over and over, I kept hoping that you were worried, that you were coming to find me and coming to save me.

It took until the Joker locking me and Sheila in the warehouse for me to realize that neither of you were coming to save me.

I could have survived if only I hadn’t tried to save Sheila, Damian. If I had just run and saved myself, I would have been okay. But I had to untie Sheila, had to carry her on my back, had to struggle her away from the bomb.

The bomb went off as soon as she was out the door.

How do you think Bruce reacted, Damian? Do you think he cried? Do you think he mourned, while he was being Batman? Or was he angry? Did he think it was my fault, that if I had just waited like he had told me, that I would still be alive?

Or were you there? Did you get to the warehouse just after the bomb went off? Did you cry when you found my body?

Did you go to my funeral?

That was kind of a waste, huh, since I came back anyways.

Before I say anything else, Dami, I wanna say that I’m sorry for what I did to Dick. I shouldn’t have kidnapped him, I shouldn’t have held him for so long, I shouldn’t have acted out like that.

But I didn’t hit him that hard, Dami. I took him out of Titans Tower, and I just put him in a warehouse. You should have figured that out. You should have seen my note, you should have thought about where I would put my replacement, you should have found him.

But none of you found him. You didn’t, Bruce didn’t, Steph didn’t.

Sometimes I wondered if you were even looking for him.

I talked to him every day, Dami. I talked to him about what I had missed while I was dead—Barbara Gordon, can you believe it?—and I talked to him about what it was like for me being Robin.

He asked when I was going to let him go, Damian. He asked every day, and every day I told him, “When one of the Bats finds you.”

He’s only nine, Damian. He’s the youngest Robin that Bruce has ever trained. Younger than you were, even, even if it’s only by a year.

I do feel bad about it. Every day, I hoped you would find him.

You didn’t.

So I let him go, and I let him find you.

I hope he isn’t broken, Dami. I really hope that he’s okay, and that you’re helping him be okay.

I’m not fucking mad at you, Dami. I’m not, no matter what I put in this letter to make you think so. I’m not mad that you let me die, I’m not mad that you haven’t taken out the Joker yet, I wouldn’t even be mad if you didn’t cry at my funeral.

You’re my older brother, Dami, and I want us to still end up being okay, eventually.

I’m only 16, Dami, did you realize? I’m not sure if the time I spent being dead counts as aging, but I saw a newspaper the other week that said August sixteenth. I’m sixteen, Dami, it’s my golden fucking birthday. I had a party.

You weren’t invited.

Then again, none of you were.

I miss you, Dami.

I’m not sure if I should tell you this now, but I want to. I want to tell you who brought me back.

It was your mom, Dami. Your mom dunked me in the Lazarus Pit, held me under even while I struggled for air, kept holding me until I went insane. Your mother brought me back to life.

Tell her thank you, if you can get within 50 feet of her any time soon.

Have a good fucking life with that, Damian Wayne.

~~Love,~~  
~~Faithfully,~~  
~~Sincerely,~~

——Jay


	2. dear older sister; i miss you sorely

Dear Older Sister,

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from me, hasn’t it? You haven’t texted me in ages, you haven’t tracked me down and demanded answers, you haven’t even called or e-mailed.

It’s been so long since we’ve met up.

Do you remember the first time you met me?

I was six years old and you had caught my wrist as I was slipping my hand into a rich old man’s pocket. He would never have even missed what I took, Steph, it was only $10. Mom and I could have eaten for a week on that, or at least we could have if I would have hid it well.

But you stopped me, Steph, and you asked me just what I thought I was doing.

I had a face for when I got caught doing things I shouldn’t have, Steph, and you’ve seen that face a lot.

You’ve never let it fool you, though, not even the first time.

My eyes were watering, and my lip was wobbling, and I was planning on the fastest way to break your hold and lose you in the Gotham alleys. I guess you could tell it was fake, though, probably from your dad lying to you about where he was going, about what he was doing, about everything and you always needing to know the truth.

“Not falling for it, kid,” you had told me. “Robin doesn’t let anyone go.”

I didn’t know how I was going to get out of this one, being six years old, and my best plan was to kick you in the shin really hard and hope that you would let me go.

I mean, now I know that you have full-body armor, but it was a rude awakening to six-year-old me.

I howled as soon as I made contact, and you actually looked concerned. Not concerned to let me go, of course, because Robin doesn’t let anyone go. But you dragged me over to a stoop and made me sit on the steps. You checked me over, decided that the worst I would have would be a purple and black toenail, and you sat down next to me.

“Why’d you do it, kid?” You asked me.

“You mean why’d I kick ya?” I replied. “It’s ‘cause you’re an ugly bitch.”

You pinched me for that, but this time I held my tongue hard enough not to let you know that you’d hurt me.

“I mean, why’d you try to rob the old man? He might need that money.”

“He ain’t,” I had dismissed quickly. “He’s way too fancy to be down in Crime Alley at night. That asshat was prob’ly just meeting a hooker.”

For that, you slapped me gently upside the head. “Don’t swear,” you had told me. “You’re too young to swear.”

“Ain’t even,” I had protested.

“Answer my question,” you had told me, instead of responding to my bait.

I had stuck out my tongue at you and then looked across the street instead of looking at you.

“Me and my moms need it,” I had finally said. “We got no money, and the pantry won’t give food to minors without an adult, and moms is too drugged up to go with me.”

When I had snuck a glance at you after that momentous confession, you had just looked so damn _sad_ , Steph, I didn’t know what to do.

I still don’t get why you looked so sad, Steph. I just told you the same story that about a thousand other kids in Gotham got, but you looked like I had just told you that your dog had died, slowly and painfully.

You had pulled a twenty out of one of your pouches then, and had given it to me.

“Don’t let me catch you trying to pickpocket again,” you had said to me. “Make sure you get yourself some food with that.”

I couldn’t believe it, Steph. People could barely walk around Crime Alley with a five dollar bill in their shoe without getting mugged, and you just handed me a twenty without even thinking about it. I was six, I could have gotten mugged.

“I’ll walk you home,” you had told me.

I swear to god, Stephanie, that was the best part of my life. I was walking back to my shitty apartment, where my druggie mom and my pedo landlord were both waiting for me, but I had Robin walking next to me, telling me jokes, talking about herself.

I swear to god, Stephanie, you almost killed me by being so goddamn nice to me.

I’m not too young to swear now, am I. Not anymore. Not after everything that happened.

I saw you being Robin so many times, Steph, you don’t even know. When Damian was Robin, he was so graceful, he was like a ballerina. But Steph, you were so big, and so explosive. You didn’t hold back the same way Damian did, you barely held back at all.

I’m sorry that ~~Dad~~ Bruce fired you from being Robin, Steph. If it makes you feel better, you were always my favorite Robin.

Don’t tell Damian or Tim, though. Damian would just get so passive-aggressive with me, and Tim would make fun of me for it.

Hey, Stephanie, do you remember the first time you met me after Damian brought me home? It was right after he fell for the old lady who was running a crime school, and I saved his butt from getting crushed under a fake gemstone.

He got me in the car so that I wouldn’t get picked up by the cops, and he drove me straight into the Batcave.

“Master Damian,” Alfred was saying, after Dami had already gotten out of the car and I was struggling to climb out of the passenger seat. “I am so glad that you are growing so similar to your father, but picking up strays is a bit close to the mark, don’t you agree?”

“He saved me tonight, Pennyworth,” Damian had said. “Please, stay with him. I want to go up and get changed.”

Dami offered me the job, Stephanie. He asked me if I wanted to be Robin, if I was willing to fight crime, if I would stay with Bruce, or if I would prefer to stay with him, and he told me when I would meet Tim and Bruce and you.

I have to admit, Steph, my first instinct was to say no. I’ve heard horror stories on the streets about kids who get lured into mansions by rich cats and then get all kind of fucked up by them. I’d had enough of that for a lifetime.

Then, I wanted to know what Robin was going to think—you weren’t Robin then, Steph, Tim was Robin. I didn’t know that you were the Robin who sat with me on the steps at that point, either, but I knew that the Robin who was with me on the steps wasn’t the current Robin.

I didn’t want to take Tim’s place, Steph, I didn’t want to take anyone’s place, and I didn’t want anyone to think that that was what I was doing.

I said yes, Stephy, you know that. Or at least, you’d better have figured it out, by now.

I met Tim the day before I met you, Steph. We ate breakfast together.

I met you when I was eating breakfast too, Steph, except for you were a lot less civil than Tim was.

You crashed through a window while I was eating Damian’s Raisin Bran—I don’t _care_ if you think it’s old people cereal, Steph, I like it—and you made me choke milk and raisins out my nose.

“Who in the hell-” you had started to say.

“Don’t swear,” I had told you. “Alfie doesn’t like it.”

“I appreciate it, Master Jason,” Alfred had said from his position next to the sink. “Mistress Stephanie, please do sit down before you cause Master Jason any further respiratory distress.”

“You’re not the boss of me, Alfred,” you had said, but you sat down across from me anyways. “It’s nice to meet you, Jason. I’m Stephanie, and I was Robin before Tim turned birdie.”

I swallowed my spoonful of Raisin Bran. “Nice to meetcha, Steph.” I had said.

“So, anyway, Jason,” you had said, leaning forward on your hands, “do you know where Tim is?”

“I’unno,” I had said. “He ate with me yesterday, so he might be on the way down now.”

He was. He walked through the doorway, scratching his stomach. “Morning Jason,” he had yawned. “Morning, Alfred. Morning, Steph.”

You and Tim had some kind of fight, then, with Tim invading your room and you never talking to Tim when he needs to borrow something from you, with Alfred running around and whacking the two of you with his feather duster whenever either of you got too close to something breakable.

You were always so funny, Stephanie. You made me laugh faster than anybody. You told a bunch of stupid jokes, and you always honestly thought that you were the funniest person in the goddamn world.

Do you remember when you finally brought up the time on the stoop? I thought that you had forgotten what you had done, with how much I thought you must have done when you were Robin.

I had been wandering around the garden, just trying to enjoy nature.

You know that I always loved nature. Even if I was a city kid, born and bred, tried and true, I always wanted to get closer to nature.

You walked up to me when I was next to the azaleas.

“Hey, JayJay,” you had said. You sounded… I don’t really know how to explain it, Steph. You sounded fake-happy. Like, you were pretending to be happy for me.

“Hey, Steph. What’s up?”

You had made up some bullshit about how oh, not much, just trying to get some fresh air, blah blah blah.

“Jason,” you had said then, and I had thought that I was in trouble with you for something. You never, ever, ever called me Jason.

“Jason. Do you remember, when you were a little kid, talking to Robin?”

I had been puzzled at that. Who wouldn’t remember talking to Robin, if you live in Gotham? Robin is like an idol, Steph. Like some kind of mythical figure.

“Of course I do,” I had said. “That was you, right?”

I guess you didn’t expect me to know that, Steph, because you looked confused when I said so.

“Yeah,” you had said. “Anyways, JayJay, I was wondering. Did—were you okay, after that?”

That was the most confusing sentence I had ever heard, Steph. No one’s “okay” in Crime Alley. Me and my mom didn’t starve or anything though, and that’s what I told you.

“Jason—” you had started to say. You couldn’t figure out how to finish your sentence, though, so you let it fall flat.

“The money you gave me did help,” I said. I was just trying to make you feel better at that point, Steph, because the money only helped as long as it lasted.

You just laughed at me though, and I don’t think you really fell for it.

“I’m sorry that you had to live there,” you had told me.

“I’m not,” I had said.

I was never ashamed of my past, Steph, never ashamed of where I came from.

“I know,” you had said.

I don’t think you were ashamed of where you came from either, Stephanie. I think that we were the same like that.

We were different, though, in a lot of ways. Like, you never understood how much I loved, loved, loved doing homework. You never could figure out why I was so happy when Bruce asked me if my homework was done, when Tim offered to quiz me for my tests, when you pointed out all my mistakes in math and showed me how to do it right.

I loved doing my homework, Steph, and I loved that there were people around who cared if I got it done or not. When I was living in Crime Alley, school was chaos. It was 50-50 if someone was going to get stabbed, and it was 90-10 in favor of nobody caring if you did the work or not.

I dropped out of school in the middle of fifth grade, Stephanie, and nobody ever cared. No rich Gotham philanthropist came tramping through, asking if I had gone to school or not.

But when I became Robin, everyone cared. Teachers yelled at me when I swore in class, they told me what I was doing wrong and where, and they—

It felt like people wanted me to _learn_ , Steph, like they were actually invested in my future.

And I liked learning! I loved it! When I got homework, I was so excited to do it! I did any extra credit I could get my hands on, just because learning was such a goddamn adventure to me!

I guess part of the reason you and Tim never really got it is that, both of you always had people who expected you to do well. Even if your dad was evil, he wanted you to learn. Even if Tim barely ever saw his parents, they expected him to get perfect grades. Everybody who was at the manor then except me had had someone who expected them to learn, who supported them learning.

Still, I don’t know how that could get old. You always put on such a fucking performance about doing your homework, like Bruce or Damian or Alfie or whoever was making you do it was personally sentencing you to a lifetime of torture.

They just wanted you to learn, Steph! They wanted you to learn and they wanted to be proud of you for learning! You saw how proud of us Alfred was when we came home with straight A’s, with comments like “an excellent student to have in class. always excited to learn.”

I don’t know, Steph. Maybe learning just meant different things to us. Maybe learning made you think about your dad, and I know how you used to hate thinking anything about your dad. Maybe you just didn’t like learning. Maybe you just wanted people to leave you alone.

Still, even with all our differences, I always really liked you, Steph. Like I said, you were always my favorite Robin, even after I became Robin. I liked sparring with you the most out of everyone, because you always pointed out what I was doing wrong while I was doing it, instead of waiting until after and expecting me to remember everything that we did in our fights.

You were a good older sister.

But you were always gone, Stephanie. You were always away, working overseas or being off-planet or even just consulting on someone else’s villains.

You weren’t even on Earth when I was in Ethiopia, Steph. The last time I had heard from you had been when you texted me, a week before you left, ‘gonna be off-planet for a few days. love you.’

Did you know that those were gonna be your last words to me? Did you know that the last time I would ever hear you tell me that you love me would be through texting, saying it like you would say it any other time and bringing me back a souvenir from wherever you went?

Did you feel bad when you realized?

Did you get back in time for my funeral? Did you even hear that I had died before you got back home? Or did you get back to the manor, a souvenir in your hands, asking where I was until you found my room closed off and dusty, Bruce sitting in his study and absorbing himself in his work, Tim staring at the opposite wall, Damian practicing his swordplay until he passed out?

Did you mourn me, Steph? What happened? What did you do when you realized I was dead? Did you cry? Or did you just erase me from your life?

It’s okay now though, Steph. I came back. I got dunked in the Lazarus Pit, got held under by Talia al Ghul until I tried to start breathing again and choked on water.

I wasn’t dead for long, Steph. Only about a year, I think, because my golden birthday passed.

I’m sixteen, Steph, and I didn’t get to celebrate my birthday.

I miss you a lot, Steph. But I’ve done some shitty things since I got back to Gotham, right? I kidnapped the replacement, and I didn’t tell any of you where I put him.

It was an easy clue, Steph. I told all of you that I did it, and where was the last place I was? A warehouse.

I thought Damian would figure it out. And if not him, Tim definitely should have. And even then, if not Tim, then you or Bruce would have gotten it.

Why didn’t any of you figure it out, Steph?

I am sorry I kidnapped him, though. While I had him, he told me that he was scared of me, and I never want to scare kids.

He’s nine, Steph. Not old enough to do shit like this. Even Dami was older than him when he started.

Anyways, Stephanie, I know that you probably don’t miss me as much as I miss you. I’ve been really horrible since I got back, and I know that you probably don’t like that part about me. I don’t like that part about me, either.

I wish I could come back to the manor to see you, Stephie, but I don’t think that you or Bruce or Dick or Dami or Tim or Alfie really want me there.

I’ll try to write you another letter, Steph, if you want it. It makes me feel better to talk to you and Dami and Dick and Tim. I even like writing letters to Bruce and Alfie.

Thanks for reading this, Stephie, if you did read it.

 ~~Bye,~~  
~~Talk to you later,~~  
Get fucked, Daffy Duck.

——JayJay


	3. dear brother; how are your studies coming along

Dear Older Brother,

How are you today? I, myself, am doing quite well. As of writing this letter, the weather outside is quite beautiful. How is the weather as of

You know what, fuck it. I know you taught me how to write a proper goddamned letter, but I don’t fucking want to do it today. Besides, who the fuck is going to give half a rat’s ass besides you?

Like it even goddamned matters anymore.

I did like it when you taught me how to write proper letters to people, though. Even if I’m not using it write this letter for you, it’s actually good for me to know.

I’m still using all those social grace lessons you used to teach me. Compliment your interlocutor so that they do not feel awkward after you commit a social faux pas.

It’s fucking bullshit, Tim, and I never have to go to a shitty goddamn social party where I have to wear your ugly old tuxedo that’s about six goddamn years too old and about two inches too goddamn short, no matter how recently you outgrew it. I never have to go to a fucking party with Bruce and tolerate old ladies telling me how goddamned grown-up I look, how fucking kind Bruce was to take me in, how pants-shittingly excited I was to have two older brothers and an older sister.

I will never have to look at some old people who have money so goddamn old that Alfie can’t even remember where the money came from and make polite goddamn conversation.

… 

My sincerest apologies, Tim. I did not mean to lose my temper like that.

But honestly I kinda did, Tim, because from age zero up I’ve been holding my temper, keeping my emotions in check. I can’t be mad when I’m four because mommy is buying crack, I can’t get mad when Steph catches me pickpocketing because it was my own damn fault anyway, I can’t get mad when I’m eight and mommy dies because otherwise there’ll be even more holes in the apartment, I can’t get mad when I get kicked out of school because then social services will come by, I can’t get mad when motherfucking Batman catches me robbing him because, hell, it was my own fucking fault again, and then I can’t get mad at the crime lord little old lady who tried to fucking DROWN me because why the fuck DID I GODDAMN ROB MOTHERFUCKING BATMAN THEN.

And I can’t even get mad when I’m Robin because then I’ll get kicked out of the fucking family or sent to the fucking therapist or I will get motherfucking murdered by the fucking serial killer clown.

Tim, I’m going to take fifteen years of repressed anger and emotions and everything else and I’m going to turn it into pure anger and I’m going to use it to fight fucking crime.

I am sorry that I’m being rude to you though, Tim. It’s not your fault that I’m mad at everybody and I hate the world.

You were always such a good older brother, Timmy. I should have told you that more, I should have thanked you more for always being with me.

I’m always so tired now, Timmy. It feels like such a chore just to get out of bed in the morning, much less make myself something to eat or write letters to all of you.

I guess maybe that’s why I’m doing it, though? No pain, no gain, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Like, if I hate myself enough to make myself do so much stupid goddamn shit instead of just lying in bed staring at the shitty ceiling of my apartment, maybe I’ll start to hate the shitty ceiling of my apartment enough that it’ll be more of a chore to stay in bed sulking.

You know that I’m not usually _tired_ though, Tim. You know that I’m usually a ball of energy, a bull in a china shop, a spark in a powder keg, a million other dumb metaphors Alfie and ~~Da~~ Bruce used to make.

Oh, I’m sorry Tim, I should explain why I’m not referring to Mr. Wayne as “Dad” anymore.

You see, Bruce isn’t my father.

Yes, yes, I know, only Damian can make the claim that Bruce is his father and have it be backed up genetically.

But Bruce may have been my father at some far-off point in the past, when he paid attention to me and told me he was proud of me and kept on saying stupid stuff like “Good job, son,” and “Now, Jason, he’s still your brother,” and “Dear god, Jason, I’m so sorry.”

It’s been awhile since either of us have heard something like _that_ come out of Bruce’s mouth, hasn’t it!

My point, being, Bruce is a fat paddy bastard and he’s not my goddamn father. I don’t have any goddamned father.

I miss you.

The first time I met you, Tim, I was twelve years old and I was so shocked at how much food was in the main kitchen that Damian had to pick my breakfast for me.

“Here,” he had said, tossing a box of Raisin Bran at me. “This is good for you.”

I did end up liking Raisin Bran, but Damian ran out of the manor before I could tell him so.

You came down about two seconds after Dami had slammed the door, and I’m still not sure whether if that was on purpose. You didn’t seem to have known that I would be staying with you two, because you went from scratching your stomach and yawning to holding me by the hair and threatening me.

“What are you doing here?” You had said.

“Uh,” I had said, raisins and corn flakes dripping out of my mouth—seriously, what is it with you and Steph and making raisins and such dripping out of my facial orifices?

“Good morning, Master Tim,” Alfie had said calmly. “Kindly disengage Master Jason. Master Damian brought him home last night, and I do not believe that he means anyone in this home any harm.”

“Oh,” you had said, and you had released me. “My bad. Damian doesn’t tell me much of anything, and I have… sharp, instincts.”

“Like, from being Robin?” I had asked.

“Um,” you had said, “yeah, pretty much.”

“Cool,” I had said.

It was nice to eat breakfast with you, Tim. I always loved getting to eat breakfast and getting to talk to you and you saying things like “Have you heard about the conflict between Russia and Belarus” and “Wayne Enterprises is losing some socioeconomic traction in Gotham, how do you think we can fix that?” I loved how you would say shit like “socioeconomic traction” and you would expect me to be smart enough to know what that means, and even if it had nothing in hell to do with me, you would ask my opinion.

You were such a great brother, Tim, and I know I’ve already said that but I really think that you were a good older brother to me. You were always finding ways to teach me and make me feel better about myself.

Are you still being a good older brother? Does Dick like you? Do you like Dick?

Yeah, no, I know, I should have phrased that better, blah blah blah.

You always used to know that I would phrase things like that on purpose, that the top three funniest jokes to me were “that’s what she said” and “is that an x in your pocket or are you just happy to see me” and “oh my god you can’t just SAY that!”

To be honest, though, Tim, I mostly just used that last kind of joke on you, mostly because it was so easy for you to fall for it. I could say “four letter word for chicken” and Dami would hum and Steph would notice that I didn’t even have a newspaper and you would just say “cock” right when Bruce walked in.

You’re a sucker, Tim.

Tim, do you remember when Bruce signed me up for a therapist? I’m not sure what he told you, if he said “Jason is working out his anger issues” or “Jason is working out his mommy issues” or “Jason is working out his some-old-man-grabbed-him-and-molested-him-when-he-was-nine issues” or whatever. I’m not even sure you knew that I was going to a therapist, or if Bruce said that I had ballet lessons or some bullshit.

I know that you remember when you found my go bag, though. I mean, I remember it, at least. I remember coming home from school. I was going to check my bag, clean my room, and then do my homework.

I walked into my room, and you were standing there, holding my bag.

“Explain,” you had said. You were shaking with anger, and I had thought it was because of the silverware in my bag.

“I’ll put it back,” I had said. “Anything I got from Bruce without asking permission, I’ll put it back.”

“Jaybird,” you had said. You had sighed, deeply, and had sat down on my bed. “Jay, no, that’s not what this is about. I mean, yes, it would be great if you put them back—and I do expect you to put them back—but I want to know why you feel like you have to have this ready.”

I had stared at you. I honestly didn’t even understand the question. “Well,” I had said, “Bruce is getting rid of me, isn’t he?”

You had frozen. “Did he tell you that?”

“What?”

“Did he tell you he was getting rid of you? Did you hear him talking to someone about it?”

“Well, no,” I had admitted.

“Then why, in god’s name, would you assume he’s getting rid of you?” You had demanded. “Did you really think that me, Dami, Steph and Alfred would just let that happen? Did you think that Dami wouldn’t have snapped you up in a heartbeat and taken you to Blüdhaven? Did you think we would just let you go?”

“Christ, Tim, I don’t fucking know!” I had shouted. “Maybe you would have! Maybe you would have found some other fucking poor kid to be your charity case!”

I don’t think you really knew how to respond to me when I was like that, Tim. You were nineteen, I was thirteen, and you didn’t even know that I thought that you could throw me away just like that.

“Jaybird,” you had said, reaching out your hand to grab my shoulder the way you always do when you’re trying to make someone feel better, “you aren’t a charity case. You’re my brother.”

“Don’t fucking touch me!” I had screamed, letting the top off for one second, letting the pot boil over just enough so that dinner was ruined and the little ones were off hiding in cupboards so that if mommy and daddy didn’t make up, at least they would be warm at night.

You had looked scared, Tim, scared at me yelling at you, scared at me being mad, scared at me turning red and bloody and showing you the bare truth and _what_ , Tim, didn’t you want to see the real me, didn’t you want my goddamn opinion, didn’t you think that oh, maybe little Jason has some fucked up psyche that the brilliant minds over at Arkham are just goddamn itching to get their fucking hands on, some deep-seated emotional issues that make Professor Crane salivate and Harley Quinn squeal, fears and phobias so ugly, so spooky, so deranged it makes the Joker look like the best example of Arkham’s output of the entire goddamn century!

… 

I ran, Tim, you remember. I sprinted out of there like Usain Bolt, and I hid in the back of the attic.

You always knew where I hid, Tim, but you also always knew when to come find me. You could tell the difference between five minutes of sullen silence before I emerged, twenty minutes of heaving sobs before you would come find me, and an hour of blankly staring at a dusty mirror, not feeling anything, not knowing what I’m supposed to feel.

You found me, twenty-five minutes after I ran, staring at my face in the mirror. You didn’t say anything, you just sat next to me, put your arm over my shoulder, and stared at the mirror with me.

“Thank you,” I had finally said. “‘M sorry.”

“It’s okay, Jaybird,” you had said. “We’ll just put everything back, and it’ll be fine.”

I had swiped my tears away with my sweatshirt sleeve then, and you had been gracious enough to pretend not to notice.

“Love you, Tim,” I had said. No homo, but I shouldn’t have to say that, because you’re my brother and, like, a billion years older than me.

“Love you too, Jaybird,” you had said. “C’mon, let’s put back the forks before Alfred has a breakdown.”

You saved me, Tim, from either crawling out an attic window and accidentally killing myself or from ending up back on the streets with nothing to do or from dying of humiliation if Dami caught me and yelled at me or a billion other tiny llittle things.

Thank you, Tim, for every time you’ve saved my life.

The thing is, Tim, you didn’t save my life _enough_. You didn’t check up on me when I suddenly disappeared out of the mansion or when nobody could find me or when Dami called you in a panic because Bruce was out of the country so where the fuck is Jason, Tim, he can’t be back in Crime Alley, is he with a Leaguer, did he rob Bruce, where the fuck is Jason?

I’m kidding, Tim, I have no idea how you all reacted.

I hope it was dramatic, when I first went missing. I hope everyone was freaking out, looking for me, calling me and texting me and checking security footage from everywhere to see where I had gone.

I mean, I didn’t get any notifications when I checked my phone, but whatever.

And I hope that when I called Damian, he called you and Alfie and Steph (if he called her when I went missing) and told them all it’s okay, I found him, he’s in Ethiopia, I’m going to go beat the shit out of his stupid ass, only with all of Damian’s fancy-sounding British-y type words.

I hope that when I died, ~~Dad~~ Bruce told all of you, and you all got majorly fucking depressed. I do, Tim, I hope that you were all super fucking sad when I died. Maybe I’m not supposed to wish ill on others, but I’ve already gone to hell, so what’s the worst that could happen.

I hope that ~~Da~~ Bruce holed himself up in his study, and he only had gin to keep him company, and I hope he blamed himself.

I hope that Dami listened to the message I left on his phone, right before I died, over and over. I hope he copied it to his computer so that it wouldn’t get erased off his phone, and I hope that he stared at all the pictures that I took of him and me and taped up all over his penthouse when I went over there.

I know Steph was off-planet, but I hope that when she found out, she smashed the ever-loving hell out of whatever souvenir she had gotten me, and I hope she screamed at someone while she did it.

I don’t want to say this to you, Tim, but I hope you got sad too. I hope you went up into the attic sometimes and stared at your reflection in the old mirror, and I hope you imagined me next to you.

I hope you smashed that mirror.

Putting all that aside, though, you all can’t have mourned _too_ long! After all, I was only dead for about a year, maybe less, and Bruce has already adopted a new charity case! Oh, but don’t worry, Timmy, this one is from the circus, so he’s nothing like me! Bruce definitely isn’t projecting anything on this kid!

Although, you’ve seen how _I_ treated him, so god can only imagine how you value my opinion on the subject.

My opinion is that it’s really fucked up, Tim. How long did Bruce wait to give him Robin? A week? Two? How long until he gets my skateboard, my computer, my books, my flowers, my everything? Is Bruce going to put him in my room? 

See, though, Tim, the worst thing would be if Bruce didn’t care about any of that. If I confronted him about it and Bruce said, “what the hell are you talking about?” If Bruce wasn’t projecting me on Dick at all, if Bruce is just honestly being a good person.

Because that makes me the bad guy, Tim, that makes me the one who Bruce can say, without any damage to his morals, “he’s a bad guy, he needs to be in Arkham.”

Because, hey, everyone in Arkham sees things no one else is seeing!

Please, Tim, don’t let Bruce send me to Arkham.

I read the news, I mean. I’ve heard about the inmate population fluctuations.

The Joker is in Arkham right now, Tim, so don’t let Bruce send me there while he’s there, don’t make me be in the same building as that sicko. Don’t make me have to go in and here the Joker howling with laughter, don’t make me see him grinning, don’t make me feel him hitting me with a crowbar _over_ and _over_ and _over_ again while he sings his little song about no one coming to save me and about nobody caring about me and about what sick little mommies have in common with sick little boys and—

The weather outside my window appears to have turned sour, Timothy. Ah, well, que será será, and such. Mother Nature is a fickle mistress.

Do respond to my letter soon, Tim. I have missed you dearly.

Also, before I finish this letter, you have my sincerest gratitude for the last birthday gift you sent me. I understand that this year has been exceptionally difficult on consumers, and I appreciate you thinking of me, particularly in as muggy a month as this August was.

~~Sincerely,~~  
 ~~Yours,~~   
Miss you,

Jaybird


	4. dear father, this is the last time you will hear me call you that

Dear Bruce,

Hello.

Maybe, at this point, you know who’s writing this letter. Maybe Damian has told you about the letter he got from me, or maybe Steph did, or maybe Tim did. Point is, maybe somebody told you about the mysterious letter they got from their long-lost, recently-resurrected little brother. Maybe you’re on the lookout for things like that. Maybe you’ve been monitoring the mail for threats. Maybe you’ve been x-raying letters so that no bombs get in. Maybe you’re being proactive in protecting your livelihood for once.

Then again, maybe you’re emotionally withdrawn and don’t pay any attention to your kids whatsoever.

But hey. That’s none of my business. I can’t tell you how to raise your kids.

Hell, I can’t even tell you how to keep your kids alive!

Ah, I kill me. Jokes kill me, I mean.

Yeah, I got my subtlety from you, Batso. Ha! Daddy did pass on one good trait, I guess.

Do you even miss me?

Do you even know who I am yet? Do you recognize my handwriting? Do you recognize what I’m saying?

It’s Jason, Bruce. It’s Jason, Robin number four, son number three. It’s your favorite failure and your least favorite person and, right back again, your favorite warning. Do your homework, or you’ll end up like Jason. Eat your vegetables, or you’ll end up like Jason. Do what I tell you, or you’ll end up like Jason. Something or Jason, something or Jason, something or motherfucking Jason.

Do you even care that I died, Bruce? Did you think I was a good Robin? Did I have a funeral? Or did I just die and become an urban legend to spook the next kid you adopt?

I hope that you haven’t forgotten me, Bruce. And at the very least, I hope that you cared, so that you know that it was your fault. I hope that when you realized that the Red Hood was Jason, you stared at that goddamn computer screen and wished that you had never left me alone in Ethiopia.

I hope that when you saw the warehouse explode, you felt something break deep inside of you. I hope you saw me die and you started suffering far worse than I ever could have.

I hope that you’ve talked to the Joker since I died, and I hope he told you about everything he did to me. I hope he told you about hitting me with a crowbar in all the soft bits so that I didn’t pass out again. I hope he told you about telling me that you weren’t my real father. I hope he told you about digging the crowbar into my ribs, I hope he told you about swinging it at me like I was the green on a golf course, I hope he told you how pathetic and broken I was by the end. I hope he told you about his song about broken little boys, and I hope you wondered if you had broken me.

I hope he told you that he told me that my mommy would die with me.

I hope that you were hurt by me dying more than I ever was. I hope that you’re beyond repair. I hope that you have to see a therapist, a psychiatrist, a something to deal with your dead fucking son.

I hope no one ever forgives you. I hope that the media found out that I had died and tried to pin the blame on you. I hope that people started pointing fingers at you and mentioning the bruises they would see on my wrists at social parties you used to throw. I hope people poked and prodded at you to tell them the _truth_ , Bruce, how about you tell us about what you’re really doing with those kids up there. I hope you had to appear in court. I hope that Gotham accused you of hurting little kids. I hope that Commissioner Gordon testified against you. I hope that the only person you had on your side was Alfred. I hope that even if you got off, people still whisper about you behind gloved hands. I hope people still talk about Bruce Wayne hitting his kids.

I hope that you never threw another party.

I hope that you’re on a list that bans you from adopting kids. I hope that orphanage directors shrink away from you when they see you in the street. I hope that you aren’t allowed to watch ‘Annie’ anymore. I hope that everyone thinks that it was your fault.

I hope that you’re miserable, and I hope that I’m making it worse.

But unfortunately, Bruce, life isn’t fair. What probably happened was that you came back from Ethiopia, went back to being Batman, and you said that I died from being wild. You probably issued a press release that said, oh, I don’t know, something about how ‘you can take the kid out of the streets but you can’t take the streets out of the kid.’ You probably went on a talk show, cried a few pretty rich boy tears, and then everything was fine and dandy. You named a charity after me. and you dedicated it to keeping youth off the streets. You keep one framed picture of me in the sitting room, the only place that you have guests in, and you have the rest turned to the wall, because you don’t want to be reminded of your failures. You adopt a new kid as soon as possible and call him Robin, so you don’t have to think about what happened to me.

Bruce, I’m so angry at you. I’m angry that I’m your new boogeyman, I’m angry that you got a new Robin immediately after I died, I’m angry that you’re still not taking me seriously. I’m angry because you’re still playing your stupid little cat-and-mouse game with the Joker, that when you see him you don’t immediately remember me, that the newspaper is fucking full of the Joker’s schemes and shenanigans and all that stupid fucking shit.

You know what, Bruce, Dami wrote me a letter. I just got it yesterday, and he told me that he tried to kill the Joker. He almost threw him off a building. 

And then you came by, and you told him not to, and he knocked out the Joker, and then you and Dami had a hug session on the roof of an apartment building.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still mad at him. For a lot of things. But at least he cared enough to _try_ and avenge me, Bruce, at least he missed me enough to attempt murder, at least he loved me enough to read my letter.

I hope you burn this letter in its fucking envelope, Bruce. I hope you watch it turn to ash, and I hope that Tim or Steph or Dami walk in right when the flames are starting to destroy the return address, and I hope they look at you while you watch my letter burn, and I hope they hate you. I hope that your kids abandon you.

Hell, you already abandoned at least one of us, didn’t you? And karma is a bitch.

I don’t miss you, Bruce.

I miss everyone else, Bruce. I miss Alfred, and Dami, and Tim, and Steph, but not you. I miss my skateboard more than I miss you. I miss my socks more than I miss you. I hate you, Bruce, I hate you so much.

If there is one thing that I would like to say to you, Bruce, past I hate you and I don’t miss you, it’s that I wish that I didn’t hate you.

It’s not because I love you, Bruce. I don’t want to stop hating you so that I can remember how to love you and we all learn a little something about Christmas. I want to stop hating you so that you can’t look at me and see one of your Rogues. If you want to send me to Arkham, I want you to see my charred and burning body when I go through the doors. I don’t want you to see me as the Joker.

I think that the worst thing that you could do to me is treat me like the Joker. He killed me, Bruce, he fucking killed me, and you look at me and you see the same problems that the Joker has.

I’m not some psycho child-murdering douchebag, Bruce. I’m not someone who you can look at and hit with a batarang and tie me up and send me over to Commissioner Gordon.

Are you upset that I’m telling you not to do this, Bruce?

Of course you are. You get upset when Dami tells you to watch out on your left during a fight. You’re the boss, Bruce, of course you are, whatever you say, Bruce, the kids will do whatever you want for us to do, Bruce, just love the kids with daddy issues, just if you tell us what to do.

Fuck you, Bruce! I don’t ever have to do anything that you tell me to do! Eat me!

Do you even remember the first time you met me, Bruce?

You were holding me halfway outside my window, glaring at me. Your hands were around my neck, and I thought you were going to murder me.

“What are you doing in my house?” You had asked. You were choking the life out of me, you fat cockhead, and you expected me to form a coherent answer.

Your hands were occupied, Bruce, and you weren’t wearing any armor, so I tried my luck and aimed a straight kick at your stomach.

It was enough to make you relax your hold, I guess, but not nearly enough for anything else. I just collapsed on the floor in front of the window, heaving and trying to breathe through my crushed trachea.

“Help,” I had rasped desperately. I had started banging my fist on the wall so that Damian or Tim might be able to hear me. “Help,” I had said, barely louder at all.

“Why are you in my house,” you had said again. You had stepped on my chest, lightly, and knelt. “You have ten seconds.”

“Help!” I had said, just loud enough to be conversational volume.

Finally, Tim had come into the room, slamming the door open.

“Dad!” He had said, shouting. “Don’t, that’s Jason! Damian brought him!”

You had sprung off my chest like I had burned you. “Damian brought him here?” You had asked.

“I’m sorry, Jason,” you had said, helping me up somewhat insincerely. “No permanent harm done?”

I didn’t respond. I pulled my hand out of yours as soon as I was on my feet, and had moved to stand slightly behind Tim.

I had hated you then, Bruce. You were a bastard, you almost killed a twelve-year-old, you tried to no harm done your way out of strangulation.

Fuck you for who you are, Bruce, and fuck you for who you were when I was twelve. I would kill you if I could.

You’re the number one person I want to kill, Bruce. I think that I’ve got this point across by now, but just in case.

Do you remember the first time that we teamed up, Bruce? We were up against Two-Face at the casino, and I traded myself for a hostage.

I bet you miss the little kid who used to trade himself for hostages and was merciful to villains.

If you ever acknowledge him.

The point is, anyway, you remember. You remember the first time you saw me in action.

You told me that I was acting stupidly and that if I ever did anything like that again, you would kill me.

But shit, at least I saved some old lady.

Glad that you appreciated it, Bruce.

Do you remember ten months after that, Bruce? I was almost thirteen, and we were up against some two-bit bank robbers. Nobody important, not even anyone who made up their own stupid name for robbery.

It could have been resolved so quickly, Bruce, if I hadn’t gotten grabbed.

I was fine with when Two-Face grabbed me, at the very least, and I don’t know why I wasn’t this time. Maybe because I was taken by surprise, maybe because the robber was thicker and stronger than Two-Face, maybe maybe maybe.

Maybe I don’t care.

You gave me orders, Bruce, or so I assume, orders to get out of the hold and knock out the robber. I guess you knocked both of them out, though, and carried me back to the Batmobile.

I came out of it pretty quick, Bruce, maybe just a minute into the ride. I know that you were disappointed in me, because maybe I was the only Robin you ever had who would flip out when people would grab them from behind and say ‘hello’ in a deep voice.

“What happened back there?” You had asked, as soon as the Batmobile was in the cave. You didn’t even hop out of the car all dramatic like you like to do. You just made me sit there.

“I said, what happened?” You had growled at me, in your Batman voice.

“I. Froze. Up. You were kinda, like, _there_ , Bruce,” I was sulking. I was pissed at myself more than I was pissed at you.

Funny how things change.

“Why.” You had said.

“None of your fucking business,” I had told you. I was curled up in the passenger seat, staring out the window like the car was still moving. How I always do.

“Jason,” you had said. “I will find out why you did this. It’s easier for you to just tell me yourself.”

“Suck it,” I had said. “I’m not telling you. Let me out of the fucking car.”

You had slapped me then. “Watch your language,” you had said. “Do. Not. Swear. Tell me what happened.”

“No.”

I don’t know how long we sat in that car, Bruce. I saw Alfred walk by a couple of times, but he didn’t try to interrupt us.

I was always more stubborn than you, Bruce, but you weren’t giving up.

“Why,” you said again, maybe an hour and a half later.

“Fuck you, Batman!” I had finally shouted, going hoarse at the end of the sentence.

Angry crier, Bruce, never forget.

“Fuck you! I know you don’t fucking care anyway, so I’m fucking sorry if I have a—a goddamn mental breakdown because when I was, when I was nine, some fucking pervert came up behind me and tackled me and fucking—and he fucking molested me, and I’m fucking sorry that I k-k-keep having flashbacks whenever something happens! Fuck you! You don’t fucking know what’s goddamn wrong with me!”

It was a breakdown, Bruce, you know it. I was screaming and I was sobbing, and you didn’t do a damn thing but watch until I was cried out, and then you opened your arms and I hugged you like the fucking lapdog I was. Tell me what’s wrong Jason, cry Jason, good boy Jason, bark bark bark.

You never sat next to me when I was crying, Bruce. You didn’t want to see me have any emotion besides fucking valor or joy or whatever goddamn bullshit you crammed into my brain while I was Robin.

I make the rules now, asshole.

You had signed me up for therapy, Bruce, but you couldn’t care enough to sit in on one session, even if I said it was alright, couldn’t even be bothered to drive me there. It was always Dami dropping me off, then alone in the waiting room for twenty minutes, then going and talking to the therapist—what fucking luck that you didn’t pick one of the nutsos, huh—and then I leave and Tim picks me up, and sometimes we talk about what happened and sometimes we don’t, but most times it’s just me and him in the car together, and he tells me he’s proud of me and I act like a fucking dog _again_ , like praise is fucking cocaine and I have a half dozen needles in my elbow.

In the letter I wrote to Dami, I told him about how I got better, and about how I miss him. In my letter to Steph, I tell her about how I actually _knew_ her, knew her more than I knew Dami or Tim before you adopted me. In my letter to Tim, I talked about how I was getting worse.

You don’t get any of that, Bruce. You don’t get to see the private moments I had with each of them. You don’t get to hear why my favorite cereal is Raisin Bran, why I always loved the gardens, why I was so excited about going to school, why I was crying, where I was hiding, how I got along with my siblings. You get a recap. You get everything that you were there for, and you get my anger at you, you get vitriol, you get spitting black fury which I hope burns you and hurts you.

I’m not getting back into all those “I hopes” that I had, Bruce. You know what I hope had happened to you.

Maybe you’ve noticed by now, Bruce, or maybe you’ve gone numb, but I’m not calling you “dad” anymore. It’s taken some thinking, some dying, some reviving, and some torture, but I’ve finally come to realize that you aren’t my fucking father.

I know that that will hurt you, because I saw how obsessed you were with me calling you “dad” back when I was a fucking child. You lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree.

I’ve finally left you behind, Bruce, finally managed to get rid of the part of my life that kick-started me to the Red Hood, finally got up on my own two feet to do my own thing. Finally did something that I’m proud of, that I can use to help the folks down in Crime Alley, and not just the ones getting robbed. Something that can help the kids down there, even something that controls crime.

But you’re so fucking direct, Bruce, and that shit doesn’t work. People don’t learn “don’t commit crimes” from watching you beat the shit out of someone who’s just trying to earn enough money for groceries. They learn, “don’t get caught.”

Do you know what people learn from me?

They learn positive reinforcement. They don’t sell to kids, I don’t sell bullets to their abdomen. They donate half their revenue to me, I donate them a few more days of life. They don’t recruit out of schools, I don’t recruit their heads off their bodies.

People are essentially dogs, Bruce.

It’s just that some of us get domesticated.

And some of us turn into wolves.

Of sound mind and body,

Jason Peter Todd


	5. dear younger brother, i'm sorry our previous meeting went poorly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i might add another work for this which is like............................responses....................................  
> for now this is dave's great escape

Dear Younger Brother,

Before I say anything else, I want to say I’m sorry for what I did to you.

And you shouldn’t forgive me.

If Tim had done something so ~~assholeish~~ rude to me, I know that I wouldn’t have forgiven him for at least a year of silent treatment. If it had been Dami, I might have hit him with the Batmobile.

You better hate me, Dick. You better find me and try to beat the ~~shit~~ crap out of me.

You won’t win. You’ll lose, badly, you’ll probably limp back home with a sore ego and a black eye and a bloody nose, but you’ll know that you tried. You’ll come back, again and again, always trying to take me on, always trying to win.

It’ll take you ages. Eventually, you’ll start getting one or two kicks in, maybe a couple of punches. You’ll get better at fighting me.

Eventually, you’ll win.

You’ll win, because I’m the bad guy in this story. I’m the bad guy in any story about Batman and Robin.

I’m sorry, Dick, I shouldn’t be getting into sad philosophical ~~shit~~ stuff with you. You’re only nine, right? What do nine-year-olds like?

You heard about those Pokemons, Dick?

Honestly, I’m really sorry. I don’t know how to deal with nine-year-olds. I’ve been independent for about as long as I can remember, so being older than someone and trying to be responsible for them is really new to me. I’m pretty sure that I’m not supposed to swear around you, or make inappropriate jokes, or get into heavy philosophical stuff with you, but other than that, I’m lost.

I mean, ~~hel~~ heck, my primary role models for growing up were a drug addict, a man who thinks dressing up as a bat and recruiting rogue children to his cause is a healthy pastime, someone who spends more time off-planet than on it, someone so formal that he gets called stiff at funerals, and Damian Wayne.

Not exactly a rock star list.

I mean, all the more power to you if you think that Damian or Bruce or Steph or Tim are great adult role models for you. Get yourself a congratulations card if you honestly think that living with a bunch of circus folk is a healthy upbringing.

What with all those ~~goddamn~~ gee-dee clowns everywhere.

But, I mean, maybe you like clowns, Dick. Maybe you could have lived a long and happy life at the circus, even though your parents died. Maybe you would’ve gotten adopted by the ringmaster and you could have kept doing your acrobatics thing without getting converted to vigilantism.

But I’ve noticed something about Robins, Dick. All of us have some kind of fire in us that keeps us alive, something different from normal people’s heartbeats. We’re all burning ourselves to be Robin, all trying to be kerosene fires for lighting a cigarette. We get used up being Robin, Dick, and I want to warn you about that.

Why do you think Dami is Batman, Dick? It’s because he gets extra wax for his candle. Why do you think Steph runs away from here, away from being Robin? Why do you think Tim moved on to being Red Robin?

All we ~~fucking~~ ever do as Robin is for the candle, Dick. Damian gets extra wax, Steph runs away from the fire, Tim gets a whole new candle.

And me?

My candle burned at both ends, Dick, and it didn’t last the night.

Thank god.

But don’t you let that happen to you, Dick. Don’t burn your candle at both ends. Heck, try as hard as you can not to burn your candle at all.

That’s Bruce’s trick, Dick, and if you take one thing away from this letter, if you accept one part of this as the truth, then please have it be this:

Bruce is in control of all our candles.

That’s what he does, Dick, he hands you a candle and tells you it’s free of charge, and lights it before you can tell him that you prefer the darkness. He tells you it’s free of charge, and he fills it with drugs so that whenever it burns you get more and more addicted.

Like I said, that’s why Steph runs. She runs because she’s afraid of getting addicted. She’s afraid of Bruce lighting the candle again, and she’s afraid of losing herself to it.

Tim and Dami are already addicted, though. Dami’s been in the family business for so long, Dick. He only joined when he was a year older than you, and he’s been fighting since then. He was raised by assassins, Dick, he’s had a candle since he was born. And Dami keeps saying that it’s the last time he’ll ever talk to Bruce, that he’s definitely going to strike out on his own this time, that he’s leaving Gotham behind forever.

He always comes crawling back to Bruce. He always needs his ~~fucking~~ candle.

The candle metaphor is getting a little convoluted at this point, Dick. I’m sorry.

And I’m sorry for telling you not to trust Bruce, too, since he’s the closest thing to a dad you have right now, probably. Unless you count Damian.

But you can’t always trust adults, Dick. Adults will lie to you to get you to do what they want. They’ll manipulate you, they’ll hurt you, they’ll say that they’re doing it to make the world a better place and to make you feel better about life, and they’ll recruit you into a life that you never ~~fucking~~ even wanted in the first ~~godda~~ place.

But don’t take my word for it, Dick. I don’t want you to have a mental breakdown because of anything I tell you, anything I did to you. I don’t want to ruin any kids.

Maybe you and Bruce will get along. Maybe Bruce will be home for at least part of the time. Maybe you two will have a father-son game night.

For your sake, Dick, I hope so.

Try and drag as many of the kids in as you can. Get Damian in on it—if you promise Monopoly or Risk at least once, he’ll keep coming even after that. He likes strategy games a lot. Stephanie will only come if you set up at least one ridiculous game with actual structures to build, like Goofy Golf Machine or Mousetrap or Jenga. Tim likes games he can cheat at, and he’s best with words. If you set up Scrabble or Boggle or anything like that, Tim will definitely come. He’ll trounce the hell out of everyone there, but only if either Stephanie or Damian is on his team, because those two will call him on it. He’ll try to distract them with snacks or by offering the dictionary so they can plan for their next turn.

Not to say Stephanie and Damian don’t cheat, though. Steph’s a monster at Jenga, fake coughing and bumping into people and everything. And you wouldn’t think that you can cheat at Mousetrap, but Stephanie has somehow found out multiple ways to do it.

And keep a close eye on Damian during Monopoly, because he’ll try to set up a stock market and pyramid schemes and money laundering, and claim that he’s aiming for realism. And don’t let him be on a team with Stephanie or Tim during Risk, because then he’ll set up a nuclear armaments program, and threaten the other players into surrender or he’ll release his missiles (read: flip the board over).

You can’t let any of them be on a team together, Dick, because otherwise the game will devolve into petty insults and moves that are most definitely not in the rule book. Once, Stephanie and Damian started a chess game, and Damian takes chess super seriously. Steph, not so much. She claimed that her pawns had found Jesus and were such bishops, “brainwashed” all the pieces she captured into fighting for her side, and revealed that Damian’s king side knight was actually a sleeper agent and assassinated the king. Damian then apparently threw in the honor towel, and revealed that his king was actually a mascot commoner, and that the real king was masquerading as a different piece.

The game went on for ages, Dick, until Damian finally revealed that his king was one of the “brainwashed” pieces that Steph had, and then assassinated her king from the inside.

Tim was advising both of them on strategy.

Now that you’ve heard that particular fable, Dick, it’s time for the moral:

They’re all ~~fucking~~ enablers. They all have to be playing a game on different teams, or else the cheating will reach ridiculous levels because they all love to cheat at board games and they also love collaborating on anything.

Of course, knowing the people that get recruited to robinhood, or even just being part of what Steph calls the Batfamily, you probably love cheating. I’m gonna say that you like to cheat at card games. Less bending the rules “because it never says that you can’t set up a stock market,” more “hiding cards in your sleeve to get a royal flush.”

Maybe I’m wrong, Dick, maybe you’re gonna be the first person in our family who doesn’t cheat at games. Maybe you’ll be the littlest angel. Maybe you’ll guilt everyone into not cheating.

Although, that’s what Tim said about me when I set up the first board game for me, him, Steph, and Damian to play.

It was the Game of Life, and I lost badly because I didn’t want to disappoint Tim.

How’s that for a punchline?

I don’t cheat at most board games, Dick. I never cheated at anything Hasbro.

I cheat like ~~hell~~ heck at Twister.

Not like you and I will probably have many opportunities to play, Dick. I mean, you probably don’t want me to be coming over and asking to play Twister, and I doubt that you’ll just waltz into my place and say “Hey, Jason, do you wanna play Twister with me?”

And you’ve seen that me and your new family aren’t exactly besties, so I doubt that all of us will be planning a family game night any time soon.

I mean, though, if you want to, I’d play. If you invited me over for a board game or a few, I’d be up for it.

Up to you, I mean. If I were you, I would send me a note saying that you’re having a board game night and that I’m the only person not invited.

But make your own choices, Dick. I can’t emphasize that enough.

I dunno, Dick. I keep giving you contradicting advice. You shouldn’t trust adults, but you should try to have a good relationship with Bruce. You should hate me, but you should take my advice. You should make your own choices, but you should do what I tell you.

Fuck it, Dick, fuck the rules. Fuck not getting into philosophical stuff with you, fuck not swearing, fuck not making inappropriate jokes. Fuck it.

Don’t tell Tim that I swore at you, though, or I’ll get an earful.

Anyway, now that I’m done trying to pretend to be a good role model, how are you actually? I know you’re still fucked over about your parents getting murdered and me kidnapping you, but are you okay at the manor? I’ve heard on good authority that Bruce and Alfred are both gone, and god knows how well protected you might be by the likes of Tim or Steph.

It can get quiet.

You probably know about all the regular rooms that are in the manor, like the game room and the library and the other library and the theatre and the blah blah blah rich people shit.

If you’re like me, though, and you didn’t grow up being a rich motherfucker, you probably don’t like chilling out in a room bigger than your home all alone just to watch Finding Nemo or whatever.

Honestly, I would usually say that you should head up to the attic. There’s cool shit up there, and it’s less rich than the rest of Bruce’s house.

But I was a city kid who grew up in about four hundred square feet, and you’re a flippin’ acrobat!

...Get it?

Anyways, you probably prefer wide-open spaces over what was probably the movie set for _Flowers in the Attic_.

There’s a gymnasium in the basement, and a positive assload of gymnastic equipment in the Batcave, if you don’t mind being interrupted by sweaty, dry-heaving and super tall adults every ten seconds.

There’s a swing set way out behind Alfred’s gardenias. If you ask him, he’ll probably point you in the right direction. The chains are probably a little rusted, but what’s life without a little danger, right?

There’s also a park about a half mile away, but unless you can make yourself be paler than Alfred and speak just as properly, you might get run out with torches and pitchforks.

Almost happened to me once. And I only bit the one lady.

Anyway, Dick, I hope you take everything in this letter to heart, even the contradictory parts. I hope you find your own way in this world, and I hope your candle lasts longer than any of ours did.

Don’t forget to come fight me someday, Dick.

And don’t forget that I eventually expect you to beat me.

Sincerely,

Jason


End file.
